Tonight Pandemic capped off a nearly perfect year of Team Fortress 2 with their final conquest of 2008 - a CEVO Professional championship. Their 2-0 victory over rivals eMazing Gaming secured their second straight CEVO league title and third straight CEVO competition victory.
The game opened on cp_badlands as the defending champions got things off to a quick start on their map of choice. Since its introduction into TF2, Badlands has proven to be a strength of Pandemic and tonight was no different as they easily dispatched eMg 5-0, only surrendering their second capture point one time throughout the entire match.
That meant eMg would need to come out strong on cp_granary, the map they managed to best Pandemic on at Nvision earlier this year. Pandemic, though, would continue with their momentum to take the first round, but eMg countered strong as the teams traded rounds until the score sat at 2-2. It looked like things would continue in that manner when Pandemic took a 3-2 lead but fell back on their heels at the restart, losing middle quickly with two minutes left on the clock, but a counterattack and surge caught eMg by surprise. With only seconds on the clock Pandemic would take the first two point lead of the map entering halftime. The 4-2 lead would prove to be enough as they continued to close out the match with a 5-3 win for the championship.
Pandemic adds a CEVOp season 2 title to a list of amazing wins over the year including Nvision 2008, CEVOp Season 1, CEVO Sennheiser Open, Pwnage.TV Shotgun Shootout, and the CGS ProAm. What makes the victory more special is an important statistic – Pandemic won every single event in which they competed on American soil this year, the ultimate accomplishment for any sporting team.
After a break for the holidays, you can catch Pandemic back in action fast as CEVOp Season 3 begins in January as well as the ESL Major Series 3 elimination round and Gotfrag's Invitational TF2 tournament. |
